Batman: Prometheus
Two months after the Arkham Asylum Incident, the newly renovated downtown GCPD building on Bleake Island is suddenly infiltrated by a large band of armed criminals. As the mobile units across Gotham City in police cars and helicopters are contacted by their headquarters via police radio, each vehicle seemingly explodes the very instant the drivers press the button to enable their speech from their end into the radios. Fire rains down from the sky and blooms from the streets as the cars and helicopters detonate. The officers in the GCPD building are overwhelmed by the fiery chaos happening on the outside and the gritty sort happening on the inside as the armed criminals hold every one captive, including Commissioner Gordon and Officer Cash. In the Batcave, even without the bat-signal for Gordon to be summoning him with, Batman listens to the news reports and the police chatter coming from GCPD headquarters. He suits up and drives out to Bleake Island with the Batmobile. Alfred briefs Bruce on the situation in real time as it is developing. Oracle contacts Bruce to tell him that she can see what's going on at the GCPD and that she can see the Batmobile heading there from the Clock Tower. She begs him to make sure her father is all right. Bruce promises to report back to her when he ensure's Gordon and the rest of the officers' safety. Batman launches from the Batmobile and glides toward the roof of the GCPD where he is noticed by criminals that had secured the area up there. After fighting them and easily taking them down to start off the night, Batman takes a stealthy approach to pick off the armed criminals around the building silently. Once that is done, Batman tells the captives that they're safe. Bruce briefly contacts Barbara, keeping his voice low, to tell her that her father is safe. However, everyone is on alert when they hear a chopper's propellers spinning above on the landing pad at the top of the building, and then the elevator to the ground office arrives, opening to reveal more gunmen and one significant figure: a tall man clad in thick, dark, purple armor, a knight-like helmet and visor, gold and studded shoulder plates and gauntlets, and a white cape. A couple of officers resisting the armed criminals are quickly shot. The armored man walks into the office regally and is happily astonished by the presence of the Batman. He announces that a change, "the fall of justice", is coming to Gotham and that he is the one that will bring it. He picks up the closest officer to him and drags him back to the elevator as the gunmen stay and have their guns trained on Batman. The elevator doors shut and Batman drops a smoke pellet, causing the gunmen to spray bullets in surprise and confusion. Batman quickly takes down the gunmen and orders Gordon and Cash to quickly follow him to the roof. The three exit the elevator once they've reached the roof. The armored man throws the abducted officer into the getaway chopper and turns back towards Batman. Batman tells him he's not getting away with anything he's doing and then tries to land a strike on this new enemy, but he's easily overtaken and stunned by the armored man's quick reflexes and hard-hitting counter moves. The villain speaks into Batman's ear, telling him that he has never met an enemy like him before and that what has already transpired so far tonight is but a taste of what is to come. He slams Batman's head into the ground and marches back to the chopper. Batman, stunned, tries to crawl his way toward the chopper as it takes off while trying to stand up again. Gordon and cash are firing at the chopper with little effect. Once the chopper is too far out of range, the two officers help Batman back on his feet, questioning who this new villain is and what he is going to do. Gordon begins to explain to Batman what seemed to be happening throughout Gotham with the exploding police vehicles. He tells him that they seemed to be exploding before any responses could be made back to headquarters. Batman wants to investigate this before moving on with the night and is escorted by Gordon to an exploded police car that had been parked outside the GCPD's garage. Batman sets up a crime scene around the destroyed police car and uses his detective mode playback to see where exactly in the car the explosion came from. The point of detonation appears to have come from within the radio box. There are pieces of burst bomb encasings broken out in the box. Batman walks over to another, as of tonight, unused and undetonated police car. Making sure the radio box in this car is turned off, he scans the intact interior of the box, finding some irrregularities: a microchip attached to a bomb and a particular wire going from the chip to the button of the one-way speaker. Batman contacts Oracle and uploads a scan of the microchip and wire to her computer so that she can run a deep scan and diagnostic. While Oracle works on that, Batman asks Gordon to tell him about the radio boxes. Gordon explains that those upgraded boxes were newly installed just about three weeks prior. The GCPD had recieved a generous yet anonymous deposit of over $9,000 to have them manufactured and installed, which Batman finds suspicious and plans to investigate. Oracle finds that the microchip had a remote activation switch. After running a simulation, she finds that once the microchip is remotely activated, the bomb is live until the speaker button is pressed, causing the bomb in the radio box to detonate. Oracle suggests that the reason the boxes never blew up before was because the chips were activated the moment of the infiltration of the GCPD and that the armored man with the white cape may have something to do with. Batman speculates that this was someone's plan all along: to put the police department in complete disarray. Batman orders Gordon to have officers carefully remove the upgraded radio boxes from all intact police vehicles and reinstall the previous versions. Batman decides to take the Batmobile to the Bank of Gotham on Miagani Island to find where the money for the radio boxes came from. After crossing the bridge between Bleake and Miagani, Batman hears the city-wide intercom turning on. Alfred informs him of some sort of mob demonstration taking place in the town square on Miagani Island with a live visual and audio broadcast on the jumbo-screens there. Batman begins to hear the voice of the armored man speaking on the intercom. He leaves the Batmobile by the bridge and launches into the air, gliding and grappling his way to the town square. He lands on a steel beam bridge between two buildings, facing the jumbo-screen above the mass of criminals grouped below. The armored man appears with the abducted police officer helplessly kneeling beside him on screen. The villain begins to speak. ' "Thank you for coming, my dear criminal bretherin,"' he says. The mob cheers.''' "I have come to bring a change to Gotham. One so fair, it is overdue and should be doubly rewarding for those who are considered the scum of the earth beneath the feet of the rich, the 'good', and the 'law', or rather, the corrupt! Because we do things the people that rushed to claim authority think are criminal, we are persued and punished. It is a cycle that repeats itself over and over in Gotham. These people first need to realize how corrupt the police are and have always been. And how drunk on power those above ''us ''are. The reason we do what we do is because there is an authority to challenge. A law to challenge. And the only way that there shall be peace is to destroy the law. So that there is no challenge. The fact that society feels the need for a system of laws means that society has failed. Now I implore you, my friends, to prove this to the so called 'leaders' of Gotham. Do as you please. Commit as you dare. There is no one to succeed in stoping you this night. And to those of you at home, quivering in the arms of loved ones, either stay out of the way or join us and do as your hearts desire. Trust me when I say that I will steal back the fire we deserve from the figures above us... I am true justice. I am order... I am Prometheus!" '''He then takes the large, metal baton from his belt and hits the kneeling officer on the head with it, killing him with the one whack. Batman, wanting to put a quick stop to this, dives off the steel beam and glides toward the back of the so called Prometheus character. Thinking he has the element of surprise, Batman attempts a glide kick, but Prometheus swiftly turns back around to back-hand Batman to the ground with the baton. Batman painfully rises back up to try and wait to counter Prometheus's attacks. They engage in a very short lived martial artist fight, but Prometheus quickly gets the upper-hand with his superior skills and slams Batman to the ground with his baton. The villain enjoys making a show of this and the mass of criminals surrounding him are cheering. On the ground, Batman remotely summons the Batmobile. Hearing the car zoom into the town square, the crowd briskly disperses and the Batmobile slams into Prometheus. Batman, once again, rises back to his feet, spotting Prometheus and noticing he only made minor dents his enemy's armored suit as he runs into a nearby car driven by some armed thugs. Batman enters the Batmobile to shoot a tracking beacon onto Prometheus's getaway car, but he's distracted by a mob of thugs jumping on the Batmobile, banging on it and trying to pry it open. Batman zooms out of the cloud of thugs, but has lost track of the getaway car. Trusting he'll show up again at some point during the night, Batman informs Alfred that he's lost track of Prometheus and is moving on to the Gotham Bank. He also tells Alfred, then Oracle, to tap into the city-wide CCTV footage and look out for Prometheus in the meantime. Batman finds that there is a robbery in progress at his destination of the Bank of Gotham. He sneaks into the back and uses the ringing alarm to his advantage for quickly taking down enemies with knockout-smashes as the robbers rush back and forth with sacks of stolen money and guns in hand. Once the room is cleared of conscious criminals, Batman uses an office computer to search through withdrawals made at least three weeks ago that withdrew over $9,000. He contacts Oracle to have her tap in to the bank's computer and help find any leads. Oracle notices a withdrawal record and the name of the person the money belonged to: Warren White. Batman knows this name to be the alter ego of the Great White Shark, an escaped Arkham inmate who, prior to his disfigurement and insanity, was a wealthy man that knew his way around money. Batman takes note of White's old address in the account and heads back to the Batmobile. Oracle tells Bruce that she's puzzled by how the bank could have let White withdraw his money without raising suspicion as he was an Arkham escapee and his old apartment address is meant to be vacant. Batman reminds Barbara that White knows his way with money and probably had a bribe involved to keep lips sealed. Stepping out of the bank, Batman hears police sirens coming from different directions throughout the city. He spots a police car driving by and hears the radio chatter working properly, making it apparent to him that Gordon got the radio boxes replaced and now has the intact units working to take back the city. As Batman drives off in the Batmobile to the Bristol district, he calls Alfred to ask if there has been any sign of Prometheus yet. Alfred says that neither he nor Oracle have seen any sign of him through CCTV footage, just criminal versus police activity. Batman stops outside of the apartment building in Bristol that Warren White used to live in. To be cautious, Batman grapels up to a high fire escape on the building across from White's apartment eight stories up. He uses his detective mode to see seven bodies walking around in the apartment, pulling objects out of the floor boards. They resemble the bomb cases found in the radio boxes. With the audio surveillance feature of his detective mode, Batman recognizes the grizzly voice of the Great White Shark. He exits his detective mode and glides toward the apartment, crashing through the window and surprising the criminals. White runs out of the apartment and orders the six remaining thugs to take down the Batman while he runs up the building staircase to the roof. The caped crusader knocks out the six thugs and chases after White. He swings the roof door open and spots White with nowhere to go. He asks the pale-faced, sharp-toothed villain where he thought he was going to run to from here. White turns around and sarcastically says he prefered a wider area for a fist fight. The two engage in a hand-to-hand-and-handgun battle. Batman wins the fight and lifts White by the collar of his shirt. He questions Warren about the bombs, the money, and his whole role in this. Warren confesses that he left the money for the GCPD and made sure it was paid to the right person so that the bombs were placed in the radio boxes. He had no part in actually making the bombs. Batman asks about the bombs under the apartment floorboards. White tells him that those bombs were made surplus after all GCPD vehicles were filled and tonight was his oppurtunity to make use of them by placing them around Gotham for Prometheus. Batman then asks who made the bombs if not White. White responds by describing some kid in a white mask and a hooded jacket. Batman asks if White knows the secret identity of Prometheus, but Warren claims that he doesn't. Batman shakes him and mentions that he's been awfully truthful so far that he might as well say, but Warren really does not seem to know. Suddenly, Oracle calls Batman and urges him to look at the nearest jumbo-screen as she believes Prometheus is about to broadcast with the screen fading from static to a clearer picture. It does turn out to be Prometheus, standing in a dark room, addressing Batman, telling him that he noticed that he got a hold of his criminal colleague and that perhaps Batman would like to speak with Prometheus's next partner in crime. The picture fades to static and again to a clear image, revealing Anarky, the young political activist in a white mask Batman apprehended on the Christmas Eve Incident some years ago, and that Great White Shark described. Anarky says to Batman that he has come this far, perhaps he'd be willing to go a little further, since he acknowledges that Batman knows about the bombs. He mentions that Prometheus even figured that Batman would eventually lead himself to where he is. He holds up a trigger and says that he will destroy everything that the people of Gotham hoped it would rise to become in its future, but to kick things off to an interesting start, he'll just destory the Batman now. He presses the trigger, alerting Batman to get off the roof as the building he's standing on is likely an entire trap. He throws White off the roof and dives off after him as the building then explodes. Batman dives toward White and grabs him before he could hit the pavement. He slows down his landing by using the grappeling gun to latch onto a lamp post and lower himself down. Batman releases the grappel wire and drops to the sidewalk across from the exploded apartment building. White is out cold, fainted from falling. Batman ties him up to the pole of the lamp post as he hears police sirens as well as firetruck sirens coming his direction. Oracle calls, wondering what's just happened as she can see the fire all the way from the clock tower. He explains that Prometheus has allied himself with Anarky and they've planted bombs somewhere in Gotham. He tells Barbara to try and track down which station or stations Prometheus has been broadcasting from.